1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to signal samplers.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a variety of signal conditioning systems (e.g., pipelined signal converters), buffer amplifiers provide an analog input signal to the analog-to-digital converter of a converter stage for conversion into a corresponding digital code and also provide the input signal to a switched-capacitor network of that stage for generation of a corresponding residue signal for processing by a succeeding converter stage. This residue signal generation is facilitated with a selected one of a set of reference signals wherein the selected reference signal is determined by the corresponding digital code.
If it is desired to increase a system's dynamic range (i.e., to increase the amplitude range of the analog input signals), the amplitude of the reference signals must also increase. Because at least one transistor of the buffer amplifier is generally exposed to the selected reference signal, the system's dynamic range must be limited so that the increased reference signals do not initiate transistor breakdown.